Iranian Citizen Sentenced to 48-Month Prison Term
For Conspiracy to Export High-Performance Electronics to Iran

WASHINGTON - Arsalan Shemirani, 30, an Iranian citizen, has been sentenced in the District of Columbia to 48 months in prison for conspiracy to illegally export more than 3,000 electronic components from the United States to Iran through Hong Kong. Shemirani was also sentenced to forfeiture in the amount of $187,305.

The sentence was announced by Ronald C. Machen Jr., U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia; John P. Carlin, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security; and Scot Rittenberg, Acting Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Washington, D.C.

On Jan. 25, 2013, Shemirani pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) and to defraud the United States. He was sentenced by the Honorable Richard J. Leon on Aug. 15, 2013. The sentence was unsealed by the Court and made public Aug. 29, 2013.

According to court documents filed in the case, beginning as early as January 2010 and continuing through at least November 2011, Shemirani, with his brother in Iran and a co-conspirator in Hong Kong, exported electronic parts from the United States to Iran, via Canada and Hong Kong, without first obtaining a license or authorization from the Office of Foreign Assets Control, Department of Treasury.

The defendant, who was residing in Canada during the time of the conspiracy, received purchase orders from his brother, who operated an electronics supply business in Tehran, Iran. The items purchased by the defendant on behalf of the conspiracy included high performance electronic power equipment such as field programmable microchips, acceleration sensor semi-conductors, analog converters, and other testing and power equipment. During the course of the conspiracy, the defendant purchased approximately 3,695 electronic components that were then illegally exported to his brother in Iran.

The investigation was conducted by the ICE Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Washington, D.C. The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Courtney Spivey Urschel and former Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Bowman, from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia, and Trial Attorney Brandon Van Grack from the Counterespionage Section of the Justice Department’s National Security Division.